Two hundred and fifty pounds of gingerbread, 100 pounds of royal icing and 75 pounds of candy make up the gingerbread village being unveiled at The Auburn University Hotel and Dixon Conference Center Thursday night, Dec. 10 at 5 p.m.
This will be the seventh year the hotel has teamed up with Auburn University’s School of Building Science in the creation of the gingerbread village.
The School of Building Science used their 3-D scanning equipment to scan the buildings, they then scale each building to the appropriate size and build each building out of wood, completely to scale.
"Ultimately, we built authentic scale models of each building, a fairly rigorous process, and in my mind, legitimate for academic work, said Paul Holley, professor at Auburn University. "I called it high definition scanning plus virtual modeling of existing building conditions."
Alex Hoefer, chef at the hotel said they started baking the gingerbread last Tuesday.
“We started baking the gingerbread about a week ago,” Hoefer said. “This year we baked large sheets, and we have this mold we press into the gingerbread which gives us straight lines to follow. We get all the broad sides covered, and then we take an X-Acto knife and start cutting the angles for rooftops and stuff like that.”
The gingerbread village will include gingerbread versions of many significant buildings around Auburn, including Samford Hall, the President’s Mansion and the Auburn University Chapel.
Each gingerbread building features even the most delicate details such as the stain glass windows in the chapel, which are made from gelatin sheets that have been thinned out and painted with food coloring.
Hoefer said 212 gelatin sheets were used for windows throughout the village.
“Everybody works on the gingerbread village at the hotel, we have accounting working on it, we have our front office, we have our sales team," said Hans Van Der Reijden, managing director at the hotel. "We really get this great team work going and it is really fun.”
The village also has a few Auburn jokes sprinkled throughout.
“The chapel is the most haunted building in Auburn so we have tiny sugared ghosts in the chapel, we also have a cow hanging out of the Samford Hall tower, next to Hargis Hall, we put a fire truck because that building has caught on fire like three times in the past five years,” Van Der Reijden said.
Each year a new building is added to the village.
“This years’ new building is our charity for the hotel, Storybook Farm," Van Der Reijden said. "Storybook Farm has been our chosen charity for last 12 years, so it is a very meaningful addition to us.”
This year the Samford Hall building is also new because it needed replacement after being the first building added to the village seven years ago.
There is also a gingerbread house version of the President’s Mansion for President Jay Gouge and his wife to have on display at their holiday parties.
“There are so many reasons we do this and I think it is really cool not just to have gingerbread houses but to represent the community and every part of campus and off campus,” Van Der Reijden said. “We see the crowds growing year after year and it has become part of the Christmas tradition in Auburn and the community.”
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